Strange things happen when I’m on Aliexpress. If I see any interesting tea and it’s $10 I will try it. If it sucks, well it was only $10. I don’t know what I was looking for on Aliexpress, but I found this weird looking cake for $9 for 200 grams. It’s a 2014 Wild Spring Bud Pu’er apparently, but it could be wrong. I don’t know, let’s drink it!
The dry leaf looks really neat and pretty, like smushed yabao cut with moonlight white.
It was easy to break with my fingers, no pick needed since it was lightly pressed together.
I steeped it with boiling water, doing a single rinse and 20 second infusions to start. Let’s see what this tea is made of!
Tasting of Aliexpress Wild Spring Bud Yabao Pu’er Cake
The yabao cake steeps up a pale lemon yellow colour.
First Infusion: The pu’er sips in soft and light, of sweet straw hay, corn husk, with a herby finish. An interesting sip out of something of a herbal tea.
Second, Third, and Fourth Infusion: Bam, stronger flavor! The pu’er turned zesty with notes of herb and corn. It has a wild and freshness to it. It does have a yabao taste – I’ve had much better yabao but this isn’t bad for the price I paid.
And we have a tech error. I put on the lid of the gaiwan and the whole thing fell over and made a mess. This is not the first time this has happened and after this I rage quit this tea table. I’m waiting for a new tea table to arrive from the Aliexpress 11.11 sale.
Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Infusion: The Wild Spring Bud cake developed a sour taste which goes with that zesty herb note. It’s like drinking sour granny smith apples, spice, herbs and corn. It’s like I’m drinking tea that I foraged in the woods with crab apples.
Seventh and Eighth Infusion: The flavor has mellowed out to something light and sweet with a herby spice finish. The steeped leaf is huge!
Comments
What the hell did I just drink? If you like Yabao you’ll enjoy this 2014 Wild Spring Bud Pu’er, though I think herbal tea lovers would go crazy for it. I enjoyed the uniqueness of it and the appearance of the tea more than the taste. Here’s the Aliexpress listing for this 2014 Wild Spring Bud Yabao Pu’er cake, no guarantees it’ll be in stock or be $9 due to it being Aliexpress.
